


Headliner

by MyVantilene



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Bad Ending, F/F, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 05:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2416493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyVantilene/pseuds/MyVantilene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason finds the newspaper when he’s taking out the trash, sees a flicker of sickly gray paper, wedged between the dumpster and the mossy brick of his apartment complex, the end folds of it sticking out and darting through the wind. It looks about ready to fly away, but Jason picks it up before it can take off and just as he’s about to toss it in the trash and walk away, the front page headline catches his eye.<br/>UNIDENTIFIED BOY FOUND DEAD IN SIERRA BLANCA MOUNTAINS</p>
            </blockquote>





	Headliner

**Author's Note:**

> I had to post this before Blood of Olympus came out because I know I'm a sucker for canon pairings and there might not be any more Jasico from me in the case Riordan doesn't screw this all up. So the ending's a bit rushed. Sue me.

Jason finds the newspaper when he’s taking out the trash, sees a flicker of sickly gray paper, wedged between the dumpster and the mossy brick of his apartment complex, the end folds of it sticking out and darting through the wind. It looks about ready to fly away, but Jason picks it up before it can take off and just as he’s about to toss it in the trash and walk away, the front page headline catches his eye. 

UNIDENTIFIED BOY FOUND DEAD IN SIERRA BLANCA MOUNTAINS

His stomach drops. He may have been beaten and bloody, wrists tied together and burn marks around his neck, formed almost like fingerprints, but no matter how mutilated, there was no mistaking Nico di Angelo.

Jason doesn’t remember what came after that revelation. His knees hit the ground, but he doesn’t feel his bones jolt against the pavement, he shakes but feels completely still, completely upright even when his back is arched and he’s holding the article to his chest.

Everything about it is wrong. The picture, the interviews of rangers who only knew him as a corpse, one of the select few who even knew of his death, and the numbers in the top hand corner, dating the paper as two years, three months, and sixteen days old. 

Nico di Angelo had been dead for years. And no one had noticed.

Of course Jason had found his absence worrying, but he had never thought — well, Nico isn’t exactly helpless. Or he wasn’t. His strength was stuff of legends, his endurance inexhaustible, his ability to take blow after blow and just keep coming — Nico’s indestructibility was a small miracle never questioned. 

Jason feels numb for days, calls in sick to work, doesn’t answer the phone when Thalia calls, just spends his days in bed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what he could’ve done. There was so much. Nico, the poor boy who allowed himself to hope very few times in his life, and love even fewer, had given him so many chances to bridge the gap between his hope and his reality, so many chances to save him, all he had to do was reach out and touch him at the time. He could’ve forced him into staying. That probably would’ve ended badly, but anything’s better than the alternative. 

After a week, Jason finally finds it in himself to choke down breakfast and leave his apartment. He takes the first bus to California and stares out the window the whole ride, taking in the blurred lights and telephone poles and hoping, despite knowledge to the contrary, it could replace the cobwebs in his mind.

Frank’s not home when he arrives. But that’s okay. He breaks in and lies down on the couch, waiting for hours before falling asleep.

“What the hell, man?” Frank shouts, effectively rousing Jason from a dreamless sleep. 

“Long time, no see.”

Frank’s anger dissipates, replaced by something watered down with worry. 

“You look like hell.” He says, sitting down on the couch beside him. 

“Thanks. It’s good to see you too.”

Frank rolls his eyes. 

“You know, next time you can call before you —”

“Nico’s dead.”

Pause. 

“…What?”

“He’s dead. Like with a capital D. Like as a doornail. Like a —”

“I get what you’re saying. But how? When?”

Jason takes the article out of his jacket and offers it to Frank. He makes quick work unfolding it, tearing it at the ends in the process. 

“This was —”

“Two years ago.” 

Jason finds the reality of it sinking back in, and his ribcage feels like it’s collapsing on itself all over again.

“Yup.” He nods instead of completely self-destructing. 

“He’s been dead for two years.”

“Probably even longer,” Jason says, batting his eyes like crazy to stop them from stinging, “He wasn’t exactly a fresh corpse when they found him.”

“That’s… kind of…”

“Horrible? It’s fucking depressing, that’s what it is. But it’s — it’s beyond that even. He didn’t talk to anyone at all, not often enough for anyone to notice he was gone, and no one… no one made a fuss. He just. He just died.”

Frank’s demeanor twists into something angrier, his hands balled into fists and his eyes narrowed to slits. 

“He deserved it.” He spits, the venom in his words taking Jason by surprise.

“Frank —“ Jason jumps to his feet.

“Don’t. You know he did. He couldn’t — he was a heartless bastard and I’m glad he’s gone.” 

Jason takes a shaky, rattling breath and knows it’s over. He has to close his eyes to escape the flood, to escape that look he knows Frank is giving him. He gives it every time he turns up asking questions about Nico di Angelo. And Jason is going to be reduced to a blubbering mess if he sees it again, after everything. 

“…Frank…” he shutters, “But Frank, he —”

“Don’t. Don’t try to justify his behavior, don’t you dare, not after what he did to Hazel —“

“He’s the entire reason she got a shot at Elysium in the first place, the entire reason you two met, if anything you should be thanking him for —”

“For what? For betraying her? For selling her back to the Underworld the first goddamn chance he had? No, Nico was… he was always shady, always secretive, always put himself first and didn’t care who got hurt because of it.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I?” Frank snaps, glaring at him with feral eyes, a tacit reminder of just how animalistic he can be. 

“He was a fourteen-year-old boy,” Jason starts quietly, “Completely alone in the world, with no direction, and more unrequited relationships than anyone can count. He went through hell to save us, and now that we’re saved he’s expendable? He’s dead. He’s… He’s dead, Frank, you don’t speak ill of the dead, that’s not, it’s not… right, it’s not fair, you’re not being —“

“I think you should leave.” Frank says with a tone sharp enough to slice bone. 

“But… I —“

“Please,” Frank opens the door, and his words are more demanding that pleading, “Go.” 

Jason does. 

He goes across the country, meeting with everyone who semi-knew Nico di Angelo and telling them what happened. Piper and Reyna are the only ones who cry. Leo shrugs, says ‘that sucks, man,’ and asks if Jason’s okay. He chalks it up to Leo’s limited social experience, but this revelation of tragedy isn’t supposed to be about him. He’s not sure what reaction he’s looking for, maybe something that confirms they feel just as shitty about leaving the kid alone as he does. Maybe he wants them to think about how they treated Nico and feel bad about it. Whatever he’s expecting, Percy doesn’t give it to him. 

“Oh. That… I’m so sorry.” He says. He doesn’t cry. He tries changing the subject after a while.  
There are so many things Jason wants to scream at him, he loved you, really loved you, more than you’ll ever be able to love in your entire life, and you don’t even miss him, you don’t even notice he’s dead? But it’s not his secret to tell. Besides, he’s guilty of the same offenses.   
It still leaves him with the vestiges of anger boiling underneath his skin.   
Annabeth asks if he’s okay when he tells her. Reyna and Piper are the only two he can talk to about it, but he feels bad about staying around their place, ruining the whole young lovebirds vibe they’ve got going on.

He doesn’t go back to his apartment, though. After taking 8,000 dollars out of his savings account, he starts traipsing around the country, an omnipresent feeling of chasing something, but having no idea what. 

He’s at a hole in the wall sandwich shop that squats somewhere in Carthage, South Dakota. It’s winter. And it’s harsh. He’s grown a beard, a scruffy little puff of gold sitting on the edge of his chin and wrapping around his jawline, and his hair has grown out of its standard Camp Jupiter crew cut into something more wild, drastically unkempt, especially by comparison to his glory days.   
He orders a sandwich, tips 50%, and settles down to take a bite when he hears a child crying. He hesitates a moment before getting up and giving the poor toddler his sandwich. The mother says that’s okay, really, she can pay him back just as soon as her husband gets there with his wallet.

No problem, he says. Because it never is. 

As he’s walking back to his seat, he sees an aviator jacket wrapped around a bundle of bones, tufts of black hair peeking out over the top. He freezes. His heart stops, and the whole world seems to have stuttered, or broken down, or… or something. Because he reaches out, and the shoulder he touches is real, and it’s Nico di Angelo who turns around.

“Um, can I help y— Jason? What on earth—”

He can barely finish the thought before Jason practically hugs him into nonexistence. Nico protests very strongly to being lifted off the ground in the process, clawing at Jason’s back and mumbling something about shadow traveling them both to the tundra and leaving him there, but once he realizes Jason’s crying he stops fighting it and lets him have his moment. 

“Where — where have you been?” Jason chokes out when he finally finds it in himself to let go.

Patrons are staring at the scene and Nico’s eyes flit between them and Jason before grabbing his hand and leading him out into the frozen street. 

He opens his mouth to say something, but Nico immediately takes off his aviator jacket and rests it on Jason’s head. 

“Jesus,” he breathes, standing on his tip toes and stretching to adjust it properly, “Your eyes are going to ice over if you keep on like that.”

“N-Nico, you’re wearing a t-shirt.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s why you got to stop crying so I can have my jacket back.”

And hell if that doesn’t make Jason cry even more. 

“Okay, okay, sorry, but you’ve got to use your words if you want me to understand you.”

Jason tries, he really does, it’s just… he hasn’t talked to anyone in months, and he hasn’t talked to Nico even longer, and his shoulders just can’t stop shaking.

He sighs, but there’s something patient, something empathic in the gesture. He takes Jason’s hand and they sink into darkness, coming out warm on the other side. 

Nico had shadow traveled them, not to the tundra, like he had previously promised, but to a cabin with several fires lit. 

He gives Jason time to gather his thoughts, and makes them both a cup of hot chocolate.

They’re sitting on a myriad of blankets, with half-emptied cups and matching chocolate mustaches when Jason takes the article out of his pocket and hands it to Nico.

“I thought you were dead.” He says shakily, before Nico can finish reading.

“Now it makes sense.” Nico replies simply, smiling, but with his expression hardening at the same time.

“…What makes sense?”

“A couple months ago,” he sighs, staring up at the ceiling, “I went to visit Frank. I overheard the two of you talking… Frank saying something about — well, about, uh, you know…”

“…Hazel?”

He nods.

“But I wasn’t sure what he thought I deserved,” he doesn’t meet Jason’s eyes, merely stares into the depths of his cup, “To be honest, I didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out.” 

A beat passed before Jason dares to ask, 

“Why did park rangers find your dead body in New Mexico?”

Nico laughs hollowly.

“Errand for my dad. I was bait for some Underworld monsters who had escaped, and I had to go into a death trance for a month so that —”

“Your dad used you as bait?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Nico says quickly, clearly picking up on the accusatory tone in Jason’s voice, “Honest. I volunteered. He didn’t even want to go along with my plan in the beginning, but it was the only way and I mean, yeah, I was bedridden for a couple months afterwards but it worked.”

“You were what?”

“Again, not nearly as bad as it sounds. It means I got a couple months off, kind of like a forced vacation. I think I needed it, honestly. I’ll admit I was a little too reckless after…. I didn’t — uh, never mind.”

“No. After what?”

Nico’s hand tightens around his cup.

“Well, since we’re all sharing now,” he meets Jason’s eyes, “After I betrayed Hazel.”

“You didn’t —”

“I did,” he says sharply, “You know what the last thing she ever said to me was? ‘I knew you couldn’t be trusted.’ She knew I couldn’t be trusted. From the very beginning, she didn’t trust me, she never did, she always knew, she — she —”

He swats at his eyes and sighs. 

“Anyway, I was in a really bad place afterwards. I didn’t really care whether I lived or not, I had always thought, er, I had always imagined I would die in some heroic way, something that would make people accept me, you know, at least what I couldn’t accomplish in life, I could in death, but at that point I just wanted it to happen and I didn’t care if anyone knew. I guess in some backwards way I got my wish. I’m sorry.”

“No, no, I’m sorry. After I found out, well, after I thought you were dead, I realized there were so many opportunities for me to reach out to you, to be your friend, I was just always scared of… scaring you off.”

“That’s… ironic.”

Jason gives a tired laugh. 

“This whole thing is ironic. But really, I should’ve tried harder, I mean, for gods’ sake you spent all this time trying to get yourself killed, I should’ve been there.”

“You’re here now, if it’s any consolation.”

Pause.

Nico stands up.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply — I — you don’t have to stay.”

“I want to, though. I’ve spent the last couple months on a downward spiral ever since I found out, and now that — now that you’re here…”

He follows Nico’s suit and stands up.

“I’ve never had any real direction in my life. I don’t know what I was doing these past couple months, and I have no idea what I’m going to do now. Camp Jupiter didn’t work. Camp Half-Blood didn’t work. And the mortal world — that really didn’t work. So, for now… do you mind having a tag-along?”

“Why not?” Nico smiles.

And that’s that.


End file.
